Criticism of technology is an analysis of adverse impacts of industrial and

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

technologies. It is argued that, in all advanced industrial societies (not necessarily only capitalist ones), technology becomes a means of domination, control, and exploitation, or more generally something which threatens the survival of humanity. Some of the technology opposed by the most radical critics may include everyday household products, such as

refrigerator A refrigerator, commonly shortened to fridge, is a commercial and home appliance consisting of a thermal insulation, thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump (mechanical, electronic or chemical) that transfers heat from its inside to ...

computers A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ('' computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as ''programs'', ...

, and

medication Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to medical diagnosis, diagnose, cure, treat, or preventive medicine, prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmaco ...

. Glendinning, Chellis.
Notes towards a Neo-Luddite manifesto
'. Utne Reader, 1990. However, criticism of technology comes in many shades.

Overview

Some authors such as

Chellis Glendinning Chellis Glendinning (born 1947) is an author and activist. She has been called a pioneer in the concept of ecopsychology—the belief that promoting environmentalism is healthy. She is a social-change activist with an emphasis on feminism, biore ...

and

Kirkpatrick Sale Kirkpatrick Sale (born June 27, 1937) is an American author who has written prolifically about political decentralism, environmentalism, luddism and technology. He has been described as having a "philosophy unified by decentralism" and as bei ...

consider themselves

Neo-Luddites Neo-Luddism or new Luddism is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology. The term Luddite is generally used as a pejorative applied to people showing technophobic leanings. The name is based on the historical legacy of the English Lud ...

and hold that technological progress has had a negative impact on humanity. Their work focused on seeking meaning out of technological change, specifically wrestling with the question of "how tools and their affordances change and alter the fabric of everyday life." Ellul, for instance, maintained that when people assert that technology is an instrument of freedom or the means to achieve historical destiny or the execution of divine vocation, it results in the glorification and sanctification of Technique so that it becomes that which gives meaning and value to life rather than mere ensemble of materials. This is echoed by

rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

al critics who cite the way technological discourse damages institutions and individuals who make up those institutions due to its idealization and capacity to define social hierarchies. In its most extreme, criticisms of technology produce analyses of technology as potentially leading to catastrophe. For instance, activist

Naomi Klein Naomi Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses; support of ecofeminism, organized labour, and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism and Criticism of capitalism, ca ...

described how technology is employed by capitalism in its commitment to a "shock doctrine", which promotes a series of crises so that speculative profit can be accumulated. There are theorists who also cite the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

as well as the

Chernobyl Chernobyl, officially called Chornobyl, is a partially abandoned city in Vyshhorod Raion, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. It is located within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, to the north of Kyiv and to the southwest of Gomel in neighbouring Belarus. ...

and Fukushima disasters to support their critique. Critiques also focus on specific issues such as how technology—through

robotics Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

, and

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

—is destroying people's jobs faster than it is creating them, contributing to the incidence of poverty and inequality. In the 1970s in the US, the critique of technology became the basis of a new political perspective called anarcho-primitivism, which was forwarded by thinkers such as Fredy Perlman,

John Zerzan John Edward Zerzan ( ; born August 10, 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspirat ...

, and David Watson. They proposed differing theories about how it became an industrial society, and not capitalism as such, that was at the root of contemporary social problems. This theory was developed in the journal ''Fifth Estate'' in the 1970s and 1980s, and was influenced by the

Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School is a school of thought in sociology and critical theory. It is associated with the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt am Main ...

, the

Situationist International The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

, Jacques Ellul and others. The critique of technology overlaps with the

philosophy of technology The philosophy of technology is a sub-field of philosophy that studies the nature of technology and its social effects. Philosophical discussion of questions relating to technology (or its Greek ancestor ''techne'') dates back to the very dawn of ...

but whereas the latter tries to establish itself as an academic discipline the critique of technology is basically a political project, not limited to

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

. It features prominently in

neo-Marxist Neo-Marxism is a collection of Marxist schools of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, ps ...

(

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse ( ; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German–American philosopher, social critic, and Political philosophy, political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at ...

and

Andrew Feenberg Andrew Feenberg (born 1943) is an American philosopher. He holds the Canada Research Chair in the Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. His main interests are philosophy of technology, c ...

ecofeminism Ecofeminism integrates feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyze relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in her 1974 ...

(

Vandana Shiva Vandana Shiva (born 5 November 1952) is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalization author. Based in Delhi, Shiva has written more than 20 books. She is often referred to as "Ga ...

) and in post development (

Ivan Illich Ivan Dominic Illich ( ; ; 4 September 1926 – 2 December 2002) was an Austrian Catholic priest, Theology, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book ''Deschooling Society'' criticises modern society's institutional approach to ...

)

References

'' (1934) * Layla AbdelRahim, ''Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness'', Routledge, 2018 paperback ; 2015 hardback *Michael Adas, ''Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance'', Cornell University Press 1990 *Braun, Ernest (2009). ''Futile Progress: Technology’s Empty Promise'', Routledge. * Jacques Ellul, '' The Technological Society'', Trans. John Wilkinson. New York: Knopf, 1964. London: Jonathan Cape, 1965. Rev. ed.: New York: Knopf/Vintage, 1967. with introduction by Robert K. Merton (professor of sociology, Columbia University). * Jacques Ellul, ''The Technological Bluff'', Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990. *

, ''Transforming Technology. A Critical Theory Revisited'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition 2002, - Feenberg offers a "coherent starting point for anticapitalist technical politics" to overcome what he considers to be the "fatalism" of Ellul, Heidegger, and other proponents of "substantive" theories of technology. *

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...

, ''The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays'', B&T 1982, *Huesemann, Michael H., and Joyce A. Huesemann (2011)
''Technofix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment''
New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada, . * Derrick Jensen and George Draffan, ''Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control'', Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2004, *Mander, Jerry (1992). ''In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations'', Sierra Club Books. * Postman, Neil (1993). '' Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology'', Vintage. *David Watson, ''Against the Megamachine'', Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1998, - The title essay is available onlin
here
*

Joseph Weizenbaum Joseph Weizenbaum (8 January 1923 – 5 March 2008) was a German-American computer scientist and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. He is the namesake of the Weizenbaum Award and the Weizenbaum Institute. Life and career ...

, ''Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation'', W.H.Freeman & Co Ltd, New Edition 1976 *

Langdon Winner Langdon Winner (born August 7, 1944) is Thomas Phelan Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. Langdon Winner was born in San Luis Obispo, C ...

, ''Autonomous Technology: Technics-Out-Of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought'', MIT Press 1977, *

Peter Zelchenko Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...

(1999)
Exploring Alternatives to Hype
''Educational Leadership'' 56(5), pp. 78–81. *

Theodore John Kaczynski Theodore John Kaczynski ( ; May 22, 1942 – June 10, 2023), also known as the Unabomber ( ), was an American mathematician and domestic terrorist. He was a mathematics prodigy, but abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a reclusi ...

, '' Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How'', Fitch & Madison, 2016

External links

Collection of early anarcho-primitivist articles published in ''Fifth Estate''S. Ravi Rajan - Science, State and Violence: An Indian Critique Reconsidered
* Wikiversity: The limits of technological potential {{Science and technology studies

Technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

Technology Technology in society Science and technology studies

Philosophy of technology Technology systems

Overview

See also

References

Further reading

External links